1. Field
This disclosure relates to systems and methods for providing wings, and more specifically, to systems and methods for providing wings to enhance aircraft performance.
2. Background
In today's commercial transport industry, it may be highly desirable to design aircraft configurations that may yield reduced fuel burn per seat-mile, as fuel burn per seat-mile may be a metric of fuel efficiency. Efficient aircraft configurations may be ever more important as fuel costs continue to increase. Aircraft aerodynamic drag and fuel burn may be generally reduced as the aspect ratio of the aircraft wing increases. Similarly, operating larger aircraft, carrying more passengers and payload may generally be more efficient between two destinations than flying several trips with smaller aircraft. Thus larger aircraft and aircraft with longer wing spans tend to be more efficient. However, taxiway spacing and gate locations for most airports were established without providing adequate spacing for aircraft with the longer wingspans that can be produced with today's technology.
Thus, it may be necessary to provide an aircraft that can benefit from a long wing span in flight, while being able to reduce the wing span while operating at an airport.